investigations on the thermal stability of fullerene-based (ag-c70) nanocomposite thin films

Fullerene-based bi-functional nanocomposite thin film (ag nanoparticles embedded in fullerene c70 matrix) is synthesized by thermal co-deposition method. thermal stability of ag-c70 nanocomposite is investigated by annealing the nanocomposite thin film at different temperatures from 80 to 350 °c for 30 min. optical and structural properties of nanocomposite thin film with respect to high temperature are studied by uv-visible spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction, respectively. transmission electron microscopy is performed to observe the temperature-dependent size evolution of ag nanoparticles in fullerene c70 matrix. a large growth of ag nanoparticles is observed with temperature especially above 200 °c due to enhanced diffusion of ag in fullerene c70 at higher temperature and ostwald ripening. the properties of metal-fullerene nanocomposite is not significantly affected up to a temperature of 150 °c. with a further increase in temperature, a major blue shift of ~ 33 nm in spr wavelength is seen at a temperature of 300 °c due to the thermal induced structural transformation of fullerene c70 matrix into amorphous carbon. a very large-sized ag nanoparticle with a wide size distribution varying from 27.8 ± 0.6 to 330.0 ± 4.5 nm is seen at 350 °c and due to which, a red shift of ~ 16 nm is obtained at this temperature. this study throws light on the thermal stability of the devices based on metal-fullerene bi-functional nanocomposite.